Just Call Me Triangle

I ordered the cutest long cardigans from Chico’s.

Did I tell y’all I am a triangle shape?

Yeah.  I took this little internet “What Shape Are You” test to be able to be matched with their best fashions on the internet, and turned out to be a Triangle.  That's funny. I thought I was an hourglass. Not the 36-24-36 hourglass, but an hourglass on a lot bigger dimensional scale.

But, I digress.

Triangle.  And not the large shoulders, narrow hips version of the inverted triangle.

Think regular triangle here, people.  I mean, what the HECK?

This type of triangle.

That means I have a little head and a big butt.

Anyway, back to the original idea of this post.

The Long Cardigans.

From Chicos.

I got them in.  Tried them on.

And found there is a rectangle in my triangle.

Or, that’s what it looks like, when I put these on.

Of course, it doesn’t help that these cardigans are super thin.  And they have horizontal stripes.

That cut right across the rectangle that is my butt at the bottom of the triangle.

Yeah.

That would be me.  

Enter profanity right here.

Pushup, Smushup

Oh, my Lord.

This morning, at 5 a.m., I went and met my personal trainer and did my evaluation. 

Or should I say, she did my evaluation.

I now know I am WAY out of shape.

I now know I have WAY too much body fat, even though I’ve lost 50 pounds.

I now know I don’t have half the flexibility I used to have.

I now know I can’t do one - 1 -  you know, like “three, two, one? - pronounced “won” - pushup.  One stinking pushup.

I thought a pushup was a bra type, dammit.

I now know I can’t do lunges, or squats, since I hurt my knee prior to the Alaska trip.

Nothing like a little self-realization to make you feel secure and good about yourself.

I might as well not go, right?  Right?  (C’mon, give me some affirmation here.  I only need one little excuse to quit - you know, before I even get really started?)

To her credit, she didn’t laugh at me every time I failed, or even make fun of how out of shape I am.  Thank God.

She did smile and say, “You’ll get better.” Which sounds an awful lot like:  “Bwahahahahahaha...I’m going to get you, my pretty!”

And hot?

Jumpin’ Jehosaphat, it was HOT in there.  At 5 in the morning!  HOT!!!

I’m on the treadmill.  And she’s pushing the incline up, doing my cardio evaluation.  I finally told her, “Hey, it’s hot in here.  I’m menopausal.  I threaten to CUT my husband when I get too hot. Just saying.”

She smiled, and turned on the oscillating fan.    Little does she know, in that one beautiful action, she may have well saved her sweet little life.  

It's never boring around here.

Holy Halibut, People!! (Part 2 of the "North, To Alaska!" Series

Wow.

I pulled a honking monster out of the sea.  (I had to have help - I’ll admit it.)

ThatManILove can hold his - I couldn't even pick mine up.

This is a halibut, my friends.  All 55 pounds of him.  I won the catch of the day.  We fished Cook’s Inlet, and had the best time with our guides, Captain Levi Keogh and his brother, Deckhand Hunter Keogh of Key-O's Fishing Guide Service.  

Levi Keogh (l), Hunter Keogh (r)

If you’re ever looking for fishing guides in Alaska, I’d pick these two(or for that matter, anyone from their family).  Excellent young men, in a family owned business based in Ninilchik, Alaska. Their mom, Merry, is just lovely and you can tell she's an astute businesswoman.   Their dad, Lynn,  will be taking us fishing on the Kenai River later this week.  (I'm sure the boys have warned him that we're coming, poor guy!) I've not yet met their sister, Ashley, but she enjoys an excellent reputation as a Kenai fishing guide, herself. 

As to my honking halibut, well, these Keogh boys have seen bigger than mine, I promise.  Their stories boggled this desert gal's mind.  For a first time fisherwoman, I was well pleased with myself and ThatManILove.  We had so much fun, and a huge part of our fun was watching Levi and Hunter do what they love to do.  These guys are so seamless, they made our work enjoyable.  They're very personable and funny, yet, all business.  When someone was reeling a fish in, they would properly and subtly position everyone on the boat to avoid tangles and possible situations, and you wouldn't even know you'd been moved.  When I got tired, one of them was there to help me bring in Horatio (that's what I named him).  I really don't know how to explain it - but watching Hunter and Levi do what they do is akin to watching an intricate dance -  of the fishing variety!  Levi and Hunter are so synchronized, love people, and all that translates into an excellent adventure for their clients.

Not his biggest catch of the day - but we had fun!

If you're heading to Alaska, and going to partake of the fishing (I was a fishing virgin until this day, seriously!) please give them a call to customize your fishing experience.  You'll be glad you did!

My First Fish Total Catch Picture!!

Enjoy the pictures - and come fish Alaska!!  The people are awesome, and the fish are BIG.
Seriously, honking big.  Just ask Horatio.  Oh, wait.  You can't.  He's being, ummm, processed.  Yeah, that's it.

Us.  5:30 that morning, heading to the Key-O Guide Service,  With 3 hours sleep out of the last 56.  I have that puffy, exhausted look.  Didn't stop me!  ThatJanieGirl's Excellent Adventure!

Y'all know the drill - it's never boring around here!

Read The Instructions, Silly.

Today could have been a gritchy day, but by God’s design, I’m not normally a gritchy person.

A couple of people tried to pull rank on me to get time slots they wanted.  Not once, but twice today.

Really, people?

It didn’t work.  And I still had to be nice and tell them no, sweetly and effectively.

Karma, people.  I don’t know how it really works, but I do know what goes around comes around.

And if you play by the rules, you win. And you go on to bless someone else.  I guess that would be good karma. If you try to manipulate someone, you lose, eventually.  And that? Bad karma.

I hate being manipulated.  It’s a virtually ineffective tactic with me.  I can smell it coming a mile away.  It’s like my antennae shoot up into the sky, vibrating at the least little wave heading my way.

“Warning! Warning!  They’re going to scream and cry and threaten to get what they want.  Danger, danger, Will Robinson!”

And still?  I fall for it.  Until they're about halfway through their spiel, and out it comes..."we do a lot of work with your company"...or "we'll pull our sponsorship"... or....well, you get the drill.  Or, they offer to pay me.  It's a non-profit, dude.  That won't work. I don't get paid to volunteer!

I hate that they don’t get what they want.  There’s something twisted in me that wants everyone to be happy, and I’ll work like hell to make it happen for them.  Ah, well, they’ll get over it. They can get happy in the same pants they got mad in.   If they’d read the instructions, they wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Sweet tiny little rant over.

Thanks for listening. Seriously.  Now I'm going to try to go back to sleep, okay?

Toga! Toga! Toga!

If you follow me on Facebook, you will at least know part of this story.  The part where on November the 13th, or so, we were invited to our first Toga party to honor one of our friends for her 50th birthday party.  It was a surprise party.

I have never been invited to a toga party.  Nor had ThatManILove.  We vacillated about going, but in the end, our love for the honoree won out, and we cowboyed up and decided to take the plunge, as it were.

We live in West Texas, so I figured EVERYBODY would do a cowboy toga.  I wanted to be different.  Saturday morning of the party, I had a brain wave - possibly my first original thought.  We decided to go gothic Toga.  I researched on the web, and as far as I can tell, no one had ever done that, or at least posted pix on it.  

I thought it was a great idea!   We were gonna go goth toga!!  Oh, yes, we were!!  Once convinced (I am a salesperson after all!), ThatManILove let me have my way with him.  I painted his nails black.  Put eyeliner and black lipstick on him.  Died his hair with temporary hair color....black all over, except for red sideburns and at his temples.  He looked quite distinguished.  Earlier in the day, he acquiesced to go shop at Hot Topic to get all the studded bracelets, hair dye, collars, funky earrings, etc.  while I went and got the black fabric, crowns, fake tattoos. The “etc.” ThatManILove picked up at Hot Topic even included a dog chain leash.  (I said, "Honey.  A Leash?  Ummmm...there might be a fine line between gothic and S&M, and you may have crossed it with that leash/collar deal - but we were the hit of the party!)  He even spray-painted a pair of his steel toe boots black so as to further look the part.  He did ALL of this on one condition  - that he would dress up anyway I wanted if I would promise that I would have him back to regular status by Monday, when he had a 5 day frac job out in the field. And I did promise, and deliver.  Well, I thought I did, anyway.

Here are pictures.  Mind you, these were taken at the end of our night, as we were leaving.  Which was imperative because my careful design of my husband's toga FAILED.  Miserably. At first, I wasn't worried, because I thought the pants he had on underneath were ski pants.  He quickly informed me they were the silk underwear you wear UNDER ski pants, and thus were somewhat...revealing.  We gathered our gear to leave post-haste.  Here, he is holding what is left of his toga.  But he's cute, isn't he?

But now, here’s the part two of this story.

It’s been six weeks since that Toga party.  Six weeks, people.  Last Friday, we drove from Dallas to Ardmore to see Elder Son and meet all his cowboy horse trainer compadres.  We decide to meet at a local eatery called Two Frogs.  (It was good, too!)  It was a grey, dreary kind of day, misting a little bit.  We all drive up at the same time, and Elder Son is walking in with us, after we all get the requisite hugs.  

Elder Son:  “Dude.  What’s up with your hair?”  The cowboys are walking up to meet us in the parking lot about now.

TMIL:  “What do you mean?  I just got it cut.”

Elder Son:  “No, I mean, why is your hair pink?”

TMIL:  “My hair is not pink!”

Elder Son:  “Yeah?  Looked in the mirror lately?”

I looked over at ThatManILove, and about busted a gut laughing.  I couldn’t stand up.  I had a hard time meeting the people we were there to meet, because I couldn’t see for the tears running down my face.

People, I live with this man!  And granted, he’s been out in the field a bunch, and home rarely, I didn’t see that his sideburns still carried a tint (though very becoming) of pink...left over from the “temporary” red hair color.  Six weeks later.  And our hairdresser didn’t even say a word about it.  

Six. Weeks. Later.

I kid you not.

And we’re meeting all these rough and tough cowboys, one of them a world-renown horse trainer, for the very first time.  So much for good first impressions.

I absolutely could not quit laughing.  Elder Son was just shaking his head.  So, of course, I had to confess that we went to a (1) toga party, as (2) gothic emo peeps, complete with (3) black nail polish, goth makeup, studded bracelets and dog collars, AND show pictures. 

The first thing they all hooked on?  The dog chain hooked to ThatManILove’s studded collar. 

Well, it could have been worse.  At least they didn’t call him sweet cheeks or something like that.

These rough and tough cowboys could have been like the lady at the Starbucks window the Sunday morning following the toga party.  ThatManILove, every Sunday, goes and gets us burritos, a Sunday paper, and Starbucks.  And when he handed his money through the drive-through window, our  sweet barista, who knows us by name, said one thing when she saw his black-painted fingernails.

“What the hell?”

He was so embarrassed that we went straight to the nail salon and got all that stuff taken off pronto.

It’s never boring around here.  


(PS - Jack, don't you even think about making him some kind of freaking bit/bridle.  This was a one-time gig.  Savvy, senor?)

Yeah, baby, it's all still there.  Now let's get the hell outa Dodge.  Vamanos por las casa, senor!